mockups- dialog boxes in blender (vs. popups)

Blendorphin · Post by **Blendorphin** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 4:13 am

Well, I was taking a look at some things in blender, and decided to make my first mockup! (so forgive me for the crappiness

)

I was thinking about how pop ups look in blender, like the one for quit:

the annoying thing is that if you accidentally click, blender closes immediatley and you lose your work (i often try to press 'W' for subdivide but accidentally press quit, and the popups look the same.) also, the popup dissapears on a mouse-off. so, i have created a dialog box mockup using the blender ui:

personally i think that this would be a much better way of communicating the option to quit.

Also, when you add a new mesh, such as a sphere, these two things pop up (one after the other)

i incorporated these in a quicker, easier to see dialog (again which won't dissapear on a mouse-off)

Now, i was thinking about pop-up menus, and made this mockup for the menu that pops up when you parent a mesh to an armature, and select armature:

but then i realized that it is much handier to simply scroll down the list and click your option, and an entire dialog box would be overkill. This should be the same with other popups such as Extrude and Subdivide, where an entire dialog box would slow the workflow.

For example, see the Specials Menu (invoked with 'W' in edit mode)

imagine how annoying it would be to navigate a dialog box just to select an option (for us fast workers

)

So, that's my idea, thanx for listening, and any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Metallica · Post by **Metallica** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 4:38 am

wao! thats really a good idea.. specially that quit thing

i will support this

Pablosbrain · Post by **Pablosbrain** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 5:55 am

I actually like the speed with which the interface displays and clears the simple dialogue boxes. They are clear and concise.

Changing the display of the dialogue boxes won't change the way you work with a program. If you don't READ the dialogue boxes and just assume you hit the right key it will always result in agony.... this applies to any program or dialogue box. Also... working to improve keyboarding skills is also something everyone should do. Hunting and pecking with two fingers is not typing.

Don't take this as an attack of any sort.. its just what I've seen over many years of computer use and several years of teaching. It is what it is.

Blendorphin · Post by **Blendorphin** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 7:32 am

My point was not that im blind and i hunt and peck (which i dont), it was that its harder to ignore a dialog than a popup, and harder to see the difference between a Quit Confirmation Dialog and a Subdivide popup. That whole deal was because the 'Q' key is right next to the 'W' key, and the popups for Quit and Subdivide look nearly identical to the quick glance.

Id like to hear more about my idea and less about my typing skills

(Which i dont lack btw

)

jeotero · Post by **jeotero** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 10:24 am

The 'Quit' windows is a MUST ...

solmax · Post by **solmax** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 11:55 am

please, please no dialog boxes - this is an interface killer!! even now i think some "dialogues" (e.g. "extrude"?) is too much. blenders dialogues are right now almost perfect, especially because they pop up right underneath the mouse, and thus i don't have to move around to confirm something.

maybe there could be some sort of beginner dialogue level, where unexpirienced are really forced to see the dialogue and understand what they are doing by clicking "ok". anyway the current implementation shuld stay untouched, as it is the main reason for blenders extreme productivity.

greets

marin

theeth · Post by **theeth** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 4:00 pm

Just one question regarding your proposal. Will the mouse defaults on the OK button and pressing Enter confirms automaticly?

If no, it's a serious workflow slowdown.
If yes, than the problem isn't solved, people would still press a hotkey and then quickly press Enter ore Click without reading what the message says to save some time.

Martin

solmax · Post by **solmax** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 8:18 pm

of course clicking/hitting enter is not a major slowdown, but it sums up and is annoying. i have to either release the mouse to hit numblock-enter or do it with the left hand. usually during modelling i don't deal at all with hitting enter, because right now every operation is pretty straight forward.

as i said, if implemented, all those dialogue boxes should only be an option as a beginner "warning-level".

alltaken · Post by **alltaken** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 8:22 pm

i have jsut moved your images to the back end of my gallery page, they are in the same location but just not clogin the begining of the album.

i don't mind them being there at all, but just for cleanliness and because new images default to the begining of the album (to keep things new) it would be appreciated that if you expand this idea, for other interface things you move them once uploaded (unless they are blender art

) there is a simple drop down menu with move as an option, the last location on the list is cool.

i do like the quit idea

(for newbies, i don't think i have stuffed that one up more than once, and belnder does save a quit file, so nothing is ever lost unless you open and quit a new instance of blender)

Alltaken

dsobiera · Post by **dsobiera** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 8:24 pm

theeth wrote:Just one question regarding your proposal. Will the mouse defaults on the OK button and pressing Enter confirms automaticly?

If no, it's a serious workflow slowdown.
If yes, than the problem isn't solved, people would still press a hotkey and then quickly press Enter ore Click without reading what the message says to save some time.

Martin

Just thinking about the "quit" proposal only: if "Cancel" is defaulted if you hit "ENTER", is slowing down workflow for "quiting" really a bad thing?

theeth · Post by **theeth** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 11:51 pm

dsobiera wrote: Just thinking about the "quit" proposal only: if "Cancel" is defaulted if you hit "ENTER", is slowing down workflow for "quiting" really a bad thing?

I was talking in general, but yes, defaulting to cancel could help.

Martin

Blendorphin · Post by **Blendorphin** » Thu Mar 04, 2004 12:11 am

Well i guess most of you don't like this idea. Which is fine by me.
Your right, in some instances it would slow down the workflow, but as i said, we should definitely keep popups such as Subdivide, Extrude, Specails Menu, etc as they are. I would also hate to have dialog boxes for EVERY option.

My point was for the quit and mesh options popups, to me its much nicer to have one dialog pop up than 2 tiny popups (for mesh) that dissapear on mouse off and still create a new mesh.

Also, hotkeys would definitely be present, such as enter would default Cancel in the quit window and Create in the Mesh Window.

Please, dont think i want dialog boxes for every single option, that would be major overkill. just for the places that would improve the interface.

Carnivore · Post by **Carnivore** » Thu Mar 04, 2004 5:38 pm

From a design point of view, I don't think the dialog boxes would need a header with a cross because

cancel=X
and
cancel>X
therefore
X!=anything
and
cancel=default, enter

Blendorphin · Post by **Blendorphin** » Fri Mar 05, 2004 2:52 am

yes, you are right, i dont suppose the dialog boxes would need headers.
The only reason they are there was to match the blender ui; i was basically trying to make the dialogs look like the Floating Panels (for example the Transform Properties Dialog that comes up when you press 'N')